Is your specialty frugal?

[ENT Doc]

Interesting to see that ENT is the best at (not) living above their means and 2nd to Ortho in terms of living below their means.  Curious how much of this has to do with the general personality of the individuals going into a particular field vs having the income to make these claims.  Are some specialties indeed more driven to frugality?

Physician Debt and Net Worth Report 2016

 

[PhysicianOnFIRE]

Apparently, anesthesiologists are the most likely to admit to making a money mistake. I know I have.

It looks like the specialties that earn the most also generate the most wealth and are most likely to be living below their means. It helps to have more means.

Interesting to see the majority of physicians under age 50 report a net worth under $1 Million.

[Craigy]

Looks like the "living below your means" directly correlates to how high your means are.  Not terribly surprising.

 

PhysicianOnFIRE wrote:

Apparently, anesthesiologists are the most likely to admit to making a money mistake. I know I have.

 

Click to expand...

I think this all boils down to their having a lot of money with which to make mistakes.  Same for the other stuff near the bottom like ortho, plastics, cards, rads.  Near the top of never making a mistake are the low-income specialties like psych and peds.  But anesthesia seems like they're a little out of place.

Why Anesthesia makes slightly more mistakes than ortho, plastics, ent, which have more money, I would guess that those specialties are simply a little more unwilling to admit they make money mistakes, more machismo, etc.

[RogueDadMD]

PhysicianOnFIRE wrote:

Apparently, anesthesiologists are the most likely to admit to making a money mistake. I know I have.

It looks like the specialties that earn the most also generate the most wealth and are most likely to be living below their means. It helps to have more means.

Interesting to see the majority of physicians under age 50 report a net worth under $1 Million.

Click to expand...

I think it has everything to do with income.  Being in pediatrics, I know a lot of pediatricians from across a lot of specialties, academic and non, and most are NOT big spenders and try to live below their means.

However the income is much lower compared to other specialties, making it much more difficult to actually do be below your means with high debt levels (and of course the doctor life style that all specialties fall prey to).

Pediatric specialists are also more likely to be in an academic setting (because they are fewer private jobs in peds specialties), even further limiting their income.  If you actually examined spending habits and spending priorities, I think the responses would be different.  My guess is the proportion of pediatricians driving beaters is much higher than orthopedic surgeons and dermatologists...

[AnesPain]

Just FYI, when I clicked on the link it asked me to login and had your email address on there.  I don't know if it happened for everyone, but just in case you didn't want your email address public, I thought I would let you know.

 

 

[PhysicianOnFIRE]

AnesPain wrote:

I thought I would let you know.

Click to expand...

I updated the link -- to read the slides you will likely have to log in or sign up if you're not a Medscape member.

[VagabondMD]

I have always found these surveys to be unsatisfying as they miss the mark
by asking questions that are nuanced such that the replies do not exactly fit the information that they are querying. Not sure how else to put it.

[RogueDadMD]

Vagabond MD wrote:

I have always found these surveys to be unsatisfying as they miss the mark by asking questions that are nuanced such that the replies do not exactly fit the information that they are querying. Not sure how else to put it.

Click to expand...

They should have just asked people the cost of their vehicles and homes (if any) and compared that to the zip code they lived in for income/cost of living adjustments and they would have had a better sense of frugality.

[VagabondMD]

Rogue Dad, M.D. wrote:

Vagabond MD wrote:

I have always found these surveys to be unsatisfying as they miss the mark by asking questions that are nuanced such that the replies do not exactly fit the information that they are querying. Not sure how else to put it. 

Click to expand…

They should have just asked people the cost of their vehicles and homes (if any) and compared that to the zip code they lived in for income/cost of living adjustments and they would have had a better sense of frugality.

Click to expand...

More than that, they always ask about income couched in terms that does not allow a straight answer including retirement plans, DB plans, and related investments (surgicenters, imaging centers, and other entities part and parcel of the income of many physicians). I sometimes wish I could ask the questions and provide the potential answers (for multiple choice).

And, really, who has never made an investing mistake? Only someone who has never made an investment.

[PhysicianOnFIRE]

The 2016 report is linked, but the 2017 report is available on the site. I can't figure a way to link to it without indentifying information #ThanksMedscape.

[Allonblack]

4 % of physicians under 28 have over 1 M in net worth? That's a lot of trust funds if that's a true statistic.

[RogueDadMD]

Vagabond MD wrote:

More than that, they always ask about income couched in terms that does not allow a straight answer including retirement plans, DB plans, and related investments (surgicenters, imaging centers, and other entities part and parcel of the income of many physicians). I sometimes wish I could ask the questions and provide the potential answers (for multiple choice).

Click to expand...

You should contact them and volunteer to design a survey for them!

[Hatton]

This type of survey is interesting but probably inaccurate.  What are the controls for part timers?  As vagabond noted do you include non-practice income?  Net worth is cleaner to me.  When someone asks me a question about income I always say define income.

[Live Free MD]

The top 1% of physicians aged 35-39 apparently have a net worth over $5 million.  I'd like to see a guest post on how they achieved such a feat.

[retinadoc]

They sure spend a lot of time gawking at the top earners... not sure how they can take their own survey seriously when they are getting response rates in the range of 1-3% from orthopedists and urologists and others.

Maybe they exist, but I've never heard of an orthopedic surgeon who makes <$500K a year.